Jean-Michael Seri disappointed at being denied move to Barcelona

OGC Nice midfielder Jean-Michael Seri has said that he is disappointed after being denied his dream move to Barcelona.

Barcelona have been linked with numerous targets all summer following Neymar’s departure and Seri was reportedly one of their main targets.

Seri had a £36 million release clause in his contract and with the Catalan giants hot on his pursuits; the Ivorian had his heart set on a move away from the Allianz Riviera.

However with Barcelona having finalized the signing for Ousmane Dembele from Dortmund recently, they are no longer interested in acquiring the Ivorian’s services.

Seri has now admitted in a recent interview that he was hoping for a move to Barcelona or to a genuine European heavyweight such as Liverpool, Arsenal and PSG among others and slammed Nice for not allowing him the opportunity to do so.

He told El Mundo Deportivo, “Nice did not deliver on their promises, I’m very hurt. I’m not going to lie – I feel awful, I did not play for Nice this weekend because football should be about joy and I did not feel this.

“My dream of joining Barcelona has been broken and this is terrible for me. From what I understand, the deal did not go through because of financial reasons and that makes me very sad.

“I was stunned to hear negotiations had broken down after my talk with Barcelona officials the previous evening, I was shattered. It was incomprehensible to me so the next day I went to the offices at Nice and I exploded with anger, honestly, the walls shattered!”

He also revealed that there was interest for him from Roma and that director of football Ramón Rodríguez Verdejo. made several bids, which were all rejected.

The midfielder continued, “The leaders of my club could not tell me anything, they could not even look me in the eye. Monchi (Roma Sporting Director) got tired of the owners at Nice, I do not blame him – that would have been a great move for me.

“I played against Napoli out of loyalty to my teammates, this was not their fault but honestly I don’t know what will happen now.”

Nice have had a disappointing start to their campaign, having crashed out of the Champions League play-offs to Napoli and they have also suffered back to back defeats in Ligue 1.

Therefore, Nice will hope to be able to keep hold of their best players such as Seri before the window closes on the 31st August. However, it will be interesting to see if having an unhappy player in the dressing room will affect the morale of the whole team negatively.

For Seri though, he will have to put the thought of a move to Barcelona behind him and prepare for the new campaign. If the early results are anything to go by, Nice might have to be ready for a long season ahead of them.